People who mostly drive in heavy traffic don’t develope the following skills:
-judgment of thier closing rate on a vehicle ahead.
-maintaining a given speed without the benifit of surrounding vehicles.
-abililty to focus thier attention at the limits of thier vision.
Combined, these factors cause “city drivers” to speed untill they reach a car going slightly slower, and then “pace” that car.
Drives me freakin’ nuts when one of them starts tailgating me on a mostly emty 4 lane highway. Usually I can bait them down to 40 mph or so before the option of passing me crosses thier adled mind.
Interesting explanation for this behavior, which also drives me friggin nuts. If I’m not already going too fast, I usually just hit the gas and lose them. Nevertheless, they often reach up to me again and stay on my ass. If I’m confident enough that I won’t get lit up, I’ll just lay on the gas until I pass someone else ahead of me, and then I usually lose the creep, who stays behind the other car/truck that I passed.
What explains the butt-wipe that stays in my blind spot to the left, and then suddenly accelerates when I want to get into the left lane to pass?
ParentalAdvisory: I don’t think I can come up with a cite that cars moving in a group down a highway can all travel at the same speed… just because it’s so utterly obvious that nobody’s ever done a study or mentioned it in an authorative reference. In fact, that might be part of the idea of ‘moving in a group’.
Say the speed limit is 80 kph. Cars at the front are doing 80. The cars behind them, if they’re also doing 80 kph, they will neither hit the cars in front or fall behind - this is DEFINITELY what it means to be traveling at the same speed. If the cars behind instead choose to travel at 78 kph, then they will fall behind the front runners at a differential rate of several meters every second. They could do this, but it doesn’t make sense UNLESS they’re deliberately trying to avoid being part of a ‘pack’ or a ‘gaggle.’ (which might provide a new context in which your post makes a bit more sense, but that’s a stretch since you seemed to be talking about what you found so annoying about cars driving in packs, not what you found so annoying about cars trying not to drive in packs.)
I think what’s being hinted at is that cars don’t travel at constant speeds, especially in a close group. What happens is that when the front car (or one of the front cars) brakes slightly, the ones immediately behind have to brake a little harder to ensure that they slow down fast enough to avoid collision. The ones behind brake harder still, and eventually cars have to stop.
This might not answer the question, but it explains why you end up stopping on fast roads when there is no obvious obstruction.
I think what’s being hinted at is that cars don’t travel at constant speeds, especially in a close group. What happens is that when the front car (or one of the front cars) brakes slightly, the ones immediately behind have to brake a little harder to ensure that they slow down fast enough to avoid collision. The ones behind brake harder still, and eventually cars have to stop.
This might not answer the question, but it explains why you end up stopping on fast roads when there is no obvious obstruction.
After reading all this I’m glad we have the rule here that you overtake on the outside (outside meaning further from the kerb/curb, in case it means something different over there). I’m not sure whether it’s actually illegal to pass on the inside but it won’t make you popular with other drivers, who expect to be able to change to an inside lane without having to check mirrors too carefully. And you’re supposed to return to the inside lane once you’ve overtaken. In practice many people stay in the middle lane, but sitting in the fast lane is not tolerated and you’ll soon have somebody behind you flashing you out of the way.
Bit of a culture shock when you first drive in the States and people drive in and overtake in whatever lanes they feel like, apparently.
Yes, it is illegal to overtake on the inside, unless there are two clearly marked lanes (eg. the left lane is dedicated to a slip road, in which case you can undertake cars in the slow lane who are continuing on the main road). Even then, I tend to be very careful in case people suddenly switch as, as you rightly say, without expecting others to be inside.